Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet star as employees from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) trying to track down the origins of a deadly epidemic that is sweeping across the world. Matt Damon is the husband of the possible Patient Zero to this disease, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law stars as a whistleblower/blogger/conspiracy theorist that reports on all things dealing with the governments dealings with vaccines.
It is a sad time in the Smelser household today as yesterday afternoon we had to put our beloved dog, Sweetie, to rest. She was approximately 16 years old and lived a long and full life.
In June of 1997 my wife, Diane, and I went to a dog show at the University of Cincinnati where my wife was studying to get her PhD in Genetics. Diane was not feeling well that day but I convinced her to go with me to the show. We were just going there to look at all of the cute puppies and not planning on getting a dog but as we were walking around I noticed the edge of a cage sticking out from the banner for the “Butler County Corgi Rescue”. The amount of the cage sticking out was about 2″ and I noticed a little black nose sticking out so I nudged Diane over that way and we asked about the dog in the cage. The woman manning the booth, Pam, told us that the dog was not a pure Corgi but a mix but she was up for adoption and asked if we would like to see her. We said yes and for the next 45 minutes we sat on the floor of the Shumacher Center at UC and played with this little 1 ½ year old puppy.
Oh boy did this movie ever SUCK! (“But Big Mutant… How do you REALLY feel?”)
OK now you know the direction this review is going. I really love movies and I have never said this about a movie, but that is an hour and a half of my life that I wish I could have back (my wife got so bored she didn’t even finish the movie). Since this is a remake I am not going to bother putting up the “Spoiler Alert” sign. Don’t worry, it won’t matter.
This is a remake of Wes Craven‘s 1984 movie of the same name but this time it is directed by by Samuel Bayer. Checking him out on IMDB shows his last directing project before this was a music video for a video release called “Absolute Garbage” which is what this movie should have been titled as well. I guess they didn’t want to make it a sequel. Continue Reading »
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few months (years?) you know that this weekend TRON LEGACY opened. Disney’s sequel to the movie TRON in which a computer genius is transported to the digital universe and must fight the evil MCP from the inside. A sequel 28 years in the making. Yes I was a TRON fan back in the beginning (my wife says I liked TRON before TRON was cool) and I was totally geeked out when this opened.
Yes it is, And don’t call me Shirley. (Yea, you saw it coming)
Late Sunday we received the sad news that Leslie Nielsen, star of stage screen and television had passed away from complications due to pneumonia. A great actor that will be truly missed greatly.
Most people know Mr. Nielsen from his comedic work in films like the Airplane and The Naked Gun series’, but many do not know that he started off his career doing serious roles like The Poseidon Adventure and the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet as well as many roles in various early television programs. You can view his extensive list of credits here.
OK, I might be the only person left that just saw this movie but in case I am not I am going to invoke the good old….
OK people when you pop this movie into your DVD have a good supply of Kleenex® at hand. Not only because this is the last movie with the toys that we have all loved for the past 15 years but because when you watch this, memories of your most beloved toys that you loved as a child will fill your head.
To see a description of the movie and my personal ratings, please read on…
On September 30th Stephen J. Cannell, one of the best authors/writers/producers/actors of our time, was taken from us too soon. Many of you, at least from my generation, remember his TV shows of the 70′s & 80′s like The A-Team, The Greatest American Hero, The Rockford Files, 21 Jump Street and many, many more. Stephen also wrote a series of novels about a tough detective named Shane Scully which I have just started to read and they are fantastic. What makes this even more remarkable is that he did all of this while also suffering from dyslexia.
Anyway, I was watching this weeks episode of Castle (great show) and saw a fitting tribute to him at the end of the episode. Stephen had appeared in a couple of episodes where Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) would get together with a few of his author pals (James Patterson, Michael Connelly and Stephen) for a weekly game of poker. The Director of Castle, Rob Bowman, is actually a friend of Stephen’s and used to work for him and he was responsible for getting them all together.
So, those that enjoyed the many years of Stephen J. Cannell Productions, will undoubtedly get the tribute in the video below.
Enjoy!
Click each link below to see a List of Stephen’s accomplishments:
I have finally posted the pictures I took on my trip to Europe. Below is a small selection of the pictures from Kaiserslautern Germany, Luxembourg and Trier Germany. If you want to see the rest, they are posted on my Flickr account, click here to see them. Enjoy!
Later…
[pullquote]You know, I have met some dumb blondes in my life, but you take the taco, pal! Only a *Carpathian* would come back to life now and choose New York! Tasty pick, bonehead! If you had brain one in that huge melon on top of your neck, you would be living the sweet life out in Southern California’s beautiful San Fernando Valley! Peter Venkmen (Ghostbusters, 1989)[/pullquote]
OK, I mentioned in my previous post that I was hanging out with 3 of my colleagues from Avid, Paul, Manuel and Luis. After the work stuff was done for the day we always had a great time going out together for dinner. We had to entertain ourselves with food and drink because all of the stores in Kaiserslautern close at 6:00 PM (a few select will stay open until 6:30 PM).
Well this one night we found a great little pub that was having specials on Guinness because it was the anniversary of the opening of the first brewery (September 23rd) and with every pint you got a chance to win a Guinness glass (we won four). Also we discovered it was karaoke night (uh oh).
So, after a couple of pints, Paul decides to start off with his rendition of “Deliah” by Tom Jones. The man was made for karaoke and really hammed it up on stage. The crowd was still small but everyone was cheering. After a few “liquid encouragements” it was my turn and I belted out “Pour Some Sugar On Me” by Def Leppard and made the crowds ears bleed. All night we kept trying to get Manuel and Luis up to sing but they would not. So after a few more people sang (the place was packed by now), Paul got up for one last time with “Mack The Knife” by Frank Sinatra. Continue Reading »
OK, it has been a real busy week for me here in Germany. Spending the week learning a new application and then learning the coding behind it in order to create customized workflows for our customers. It is really exciting learning something that is different then the stuff I have been doing for the past 10 years but familiar enough not to scare the hell out of me.
Things started looking up right after I got off the plane in Frankfurt (Kaiserslautern is about 1.5 hours west and south). When the company booked my rental car for me I received a notice that I was confirmed for some kind of A class compact car. When I looked this car up I saw that your Friendly Neighborhood Mutant couldn’t even fit his right leg into it. So I called and explained my dimensions and asked if they could do something for me. When I got to the rental car desk I found they reserved me a Mercedes E-class sedan (nice!). This worked out really good, not only for my comfort but there were 3 others from Avid attending the same training so we could now save the company some money and car pool together. Speaking of these guys (Paul, Manuel and Luis) we hit it off together and have been hanging out together all the time, but more on that later.
So, anyway, the week went on and we were running through a bunch of PowerPoint slides describing the product and how to use it. And then about the middle of the week we actually started using the product in some “Hello World” type training scenarios. And finally today (Friday) I actually got to break away from the group and go with one of the programmers to work on some actual live customer-based workflow scripting (YEA!). So we started working on the workflows and got the majority of the changes made before the client had some issues with their server and we decided to finish up on Monday. So, the beginning of my real-life coding was short lived but will begin again on Monday. Stay Tuned!
Later….
[pullquote]Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
Hypochondriacs do not want to go anywhere near this movie! Contagion is a medical thriller starring Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon to name a few.
“All good things must come to an end”
OK, I mentioned in my previous post that I was hanging out with 3 of my colleagues from 
On the other side of the screen, it all looks so easy.
